page_title: Vibrato systems for guitar
section_title: Floating tremolo
hierarchical_section_title: Vibrato systems for guitar / Fender designs / Fender floating bridge / Floating tremolo
caption_attribution_description: My CIJ Fender Jazzmaster hanging out in the sofa.
context_page_description: A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems. They add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece of an electric guitar using a controlling lever, which is alternately referred to as a whammy bar, vibrato bar, or incorrectly as a tremolo arm. The lever enables the player to quickly and temporarily vary the tension and sometimes length of the strings, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento, or pitch bend effect.
  The pitch-bending effects have become an important part of many styles, allowing creation of sounds that could not be played without the device, such as the 1980s-era shred guitar "dive bombing" effect.
  The mechanical vibrato systems began as a device for more easily producing the vibrato effects that blues and jazz guitarists had achieved on arch top guitars by manipulating the tailpiece with their picking hand. Guitar makers developed a variety of vibrato systems since the 1920s.
  A vibrato-equipped guitar is more difficult to re-string and tune than a fixed-tailpiece guitar.
context_section_description: The floating tremolo was designed by Fender for the Fender Jazzmaster, and first appeared with the release of the Jazzmaster in 1958. A larger, heavier and more complex vibrato mechanism than the synchronized tremolo, and promoted over it by Fender as their premium "tremolo arm" mechanism, it never achieved the same popularity, though if properly set up according to Fender's recommendations, it held tune as well as or better than the synchronized tremolo unit. A major cause of the floating tremolo's increasingly poor reputation since its introduction is the far-increased availability and popularity of lighter guitar strings, which do not produce enough tension in standard tuning to compensate for the low break-angle over the bridge and, in the Jaguar's case, the exceptionally short scale length of 24 inches. This places relatively little downwards force on the bridge, making it unreliable in returning to the correct position after tremolo operation.
  The main difference is that, while much of the mechanism of the synchronized tremolo including the springs is accessed by removing a rectangular plate in the back of the guitar body, and is mounted on the guitar body in a routed bay extending behind the pickups, the entire mechanism of the floating tremolo is mounted on a roughly triangular chromed plate in the front of the guitar body, on the opposite side of the bridge to the pickups. The string tension is balanced against a single short helical spring, in compression rather than tension, mounted on the back of the "tremolo mounting plate". The spring is adjustable by turning a screw located towards the center of this plate.
  The ferrule ends of the strings are held on the top of the guitar in a tailpiece plate called the knife plate, which emerges from the mechanism, rather than the strings vanishing into the mechanism as with the synchronized tremolo. It is the knife plate that is moved when the tremolo arm is operated. Unlike the synchronized tremolo, the bridge is not moved directly by the mechanism, but only by the movement of the strings, and is allowed to tilt to accommodate this movement. This is called a floating bridge.
  The Fender floating tremolo also features a knob that enables the player to lock, and thus disable, the tremolo mechanism. This facilitates quick retuning in the event of a string breaking, and strives to provide tuning stability similar to a fixed bridge guitar. In practice, the lock doesn't generally achieve as much stability as a fixed bridge, leading some players to replace the mechanism with a fixed bridge and tailpiece. The "floating tremolo" was greatly favored by some surf music bands, particularly for its ability to produce a pronounced and distinctive vibrato on a sustained chord without disturbing the tuning of the guitar. To fully achieve this benefit however, correct setup, as per Fender's recommendations, was essential.
  An issue with the unit is the bridge itself, which Leo Fender over-engineered. The six individual bridge saddles were multi-grooved "barrels". The individual barrels were not grooved deeply enough to always securely hold strings during heavy picking. Each barrel had a tiny adjustment screw at each end. Adding the intonation adjustment screws, and the screws at each end of the bridge saddle to raise or lower the bridge as a whole, gave the bridge twenty separate adjustment possibilities. Many players found this too complicated. That, and the tendency of strings to jump out of the individual saddles led to a lukewarm reception for what was an excellent—if over-engineered—design. Later, many Jazzmaster and Jaguar players found that, with no retrofitting, they could replace the bridge on these instruments with the standard Fender Mustang bridge (below), solving some of the problems.
  In addition to the Jazzmaster, Fender used the floating tremolo on the then top-of-the-line Fender Jaguars, released in 1962, and also on the Fender Bass VI, released in 1961. Jaguar and Jazzmasters share the same bridge plate and string saddles, though Jaguar bridges (and the earliest Jazzmaste
caption: Fender floating tremolo on a Jazzmaster
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-PL1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:11 16:01:24", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.5.8", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "312", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "12374", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4295", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "18/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:11 13:27:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:11 13:27:55", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "925/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "15", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}